The Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of more than 40 Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. This was the first concentration camp Elie and his family went to. The Auschwitz camp is located in Oświęcim, Poland. It is very cold in the winter, but with high temperatures during summer time. Its construction began in April 1940 in an abandoned Polish army barracks in a suburb of the city. Approximately 1.1 million people died there.